The Women's Roles In Beowulf

In the story Beowulf, the author emphasizes that women's roles weren't as valuable as the men's, Confirming that women were inferior in the Anglo/Saxon society. In Beowulf, the common assumption that often comes from the reading of this text is that women are believed to take on the servant or caregiver role. As in the story, you see many examples of the women showing traits of almost a nanny role or someone who handles all the cooking, cleaning, or caregiving of other people, like the soldiers. In fact, the few female characters in the poem exhibit their role as either servants (Welthow), or monsters (Grendel’s mother). Throughout the story, “Wealthow was going from warrior to warrior, pouring a portion from the jeweled cup for each…” (Beowulf 353). The roles the women play in Beowulf can be summarized as less important or not relevant. As the Anglo-Saxon society was revolved around the men because they played larger roles as they fought and took care of quote on quote “the big boy” stuff, as the women were more of servants and the ones who cared for the men. Almost as like a thank you for doing your job.
To look at the story from its context and power, it appears that the women in Beowulf have only minor roles because their significance as only being women is put down a lot as women couldn't do as good as of a job as the men do, so that's why they are are given the duties and labels that they
have. Since we don't know who wrote this story, it can be assumed that these women have a lesser position given the little that is said about them in comparison to Hrothgar and Beowulf.
Examining what it says in the story Beowulf, “she saluted the Geats’ Great prince, thanked god for answering her prayers, for allowing her hands the happy duty of offering mead to her hero who would help her afflicted people” (358). Through the narration we can see the central positions that women hold within the society and the hall. As this may seem important and the women have critical roles, the hall was a place to relax and celebrate, as that was the woman's job to keep it organized and serve the men their food and such. This example from the story holds a role that the women praised their men of the hard work and are in charge of serving them and feeding them keeping them healthy and what not. Towards the end of the story in Beowulf, Beowulf takes on the hardest battle of his life with Grendel's mother, in her dark eerie terrifying lake of hell. We can see in the text that Beowulf, “dropped his sword aside, angry; the steel edged blade lay where He’d drop it” (607). This displays Beowulf's strength was like no other. Even if Grendel's mother was a huge terrifying monster, he knew he could beat her. The sword represents he already had the strength to beat her because he had high confidence from the start. The women in this story, including Grendel's mother, are inferior as the men like Beowulf and Hrothgar have the main authority and or power. The women in Beowulf are still representatives of an Anglo-Saxon culture whether the men are more powerful than the women or not. It is thus that a reading of Beowulf confirms that women in the Anglo-Saxon society have less valuable roles than the men do.